We received our mission call to Perth, Australia on June 15, 2021. Due to the country being closed, because of the covid 19 pandemic, our start date finally begins on July 18, 2022, over a year later.
We spoke in Sacrament Meeting on June 26, 2022. Here are the talks that we gave.
Janet Kahmann’s Mission Farewell talk June 26, 2022
Our choices in this really matter
My beloved brothers and sisters, dear friends, my awesome supportive family, my precious children and grandchildren,
Oh, how humbling and sweet it is to assume these few minutes to express and share some heartfelt thoughts and love with you.
We have had the opportunity to study the stories and the teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament for the last 6 months. In conjunction with this study, I have also been reading about the prophets in the Book of Mormon. It’s been especially inspiring to read the account of Alma, and the sons of King Mosiah, Ammon, Aaron, Omner and Himni, who changed from being the “Vilest of sinners” to some of the most successful missionaries and servants of God, and who were able to endure to the end of their mortal lives on a good path.
Through these records of history, we see what happens to individuals, families, cities, and even civilizations when the words and counsels of the prophets of God are not heeded, and also what happens to when the prophet’s words are heeded. It serves us well to learn from history.
I want to say how much I love the prophets. I love the 17 modern day prophets that have lead us since the time that Joseph Smith entered the sacred grove and asked which church was true. As I have studied and pondered the words and lives of ancient and living prophets, I am struck with how they affected every decision that I have ever made in my life. I’m so thankful for parents who followed God and the prophets and taught me to pray, and taught me that I am truly a child of God, and can someday be where he is and like he is. I can remember that family home evening as a very young girl, and where I was when that truly sunk in and the feeling I had.
I loved teaching my children to have faith and trust in God. I have loved watching them grow and prosper in leading lives of goodness and contributing to make the world a better place. This has been the greatest joy of my life. My sweet companion, Tony, and I appreciate that our children with their wonderful spouses are teaching our precious grandchildren God’s plan of happiness through love and example.
Last month, President Nelson, our beloved prophet spoke to the young single adults of the world in a fantastic devotional talk that Tony and I have been asked to incorporate into our messages today. It is titled: Choices for Eternity.
President Nelson considers education as a religious responsibility, because the glory of God is intelligence. He states: “Secular educators prepare you for your mortal experience – meaning how to succeed in your life’s work. My responsibility is to educate and prepare you also for your immortal experience – meaning how to gain eternal life.”
He states: Three absolute truths form the foundation of your spiritual education.
1. First, each of us is going to die.
2. Second, because of Jesus Christ, each of us is going to be resurrected and become immortal.
3. And third, Judgment Day is ahead for each of us.
Because of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness, we know a lot about our post mortal possibilities.
From President Dallin H. Oaks talk, “Authority, Ordinances, & Preparation” I read these thought provoking questions that I’d like you to think about.
“If we knew that we would meet the Lord tomorrow—through our death or through His coming—what would we do today? What confessions would we make? What practices would we discontinue? What forgiveness would we extend? What ordinances would we seek? What additional things would we do to fulfill our covenants?
President Nelson goes on to explain, “My purpose tonight is to make sure that your eyes are wide open to the truth that this life really is the time when you get to decide what kind of life you want to live forever. Now is your time “to prepare to meet God.”
“Mortal lifetime is hardly a nanosecond compared with eternity. But, my dear brothers and sisters, what a crucial nanosecond it is!”
“The adversary, of course, does not want you even to think about tomorrow, let alone eternal life.”
“But please don’t be uninformed or naïve about the opportunities and challenges of mortality. In that spirit, you need to understand three fundamental truths that will help you prepare your future course:
1. First, know the truth about who you are.
2. Second, know the truth about what Heavenly Father and His Son have offered you.
3. And third, know the truth related to your conversion.
I’ll address the first two truths, then Brother Kahmann will talk about the 3rd.
KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT WHO YOU ARE:
I love President Nelson. He is 97 years old. He has 10 children. He is a wonderful husband and father. He travels the world to help others. He loves to stop in Beaver for Ice cream when he travels south, coming and going. He weighs himself every day. He is very healthy. (I love reading all the modern day prophet’s biographies.) He likes to use every minute of his life for good and for improvement. He’s had absolute miracles in his life. He’s has had close scrapes with death. He plays the piano and he has skied into his 90’s. I want to be like President Nelson. That’s why I started skiing again. One of the things that I fell in love with about Brother Kahmann, several years ago was that he has skied all his life and still ski’s as an older man like President Nelson has done. I was also impressed with Tony and his faithful first wife’s conversion to the gospel and how they never looked back.
President Nelson came to my stake conference in Syracuse as a surprise speaker on my 61st birthday, so I have a special affinity for him.
In his talk, President Nelson talks about his many labels. But he makes it clear that “If any label replaces your most important identifiers, the results can be spiritually suffocating.”
“For example”, he says, “ if I were to rank in order of importance the designations that could be applied to me, I would say: First, I am a child of God—a son of God—then a son of the covenant, then a disciple of Jesus Christ and a devoted member of His restored Church.
Next would come my honored titles as a husband and father, then Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.
All other labels that have applied to me—such as a medical doctor, surgeon, researcher, professor, lieutenant, captain, PhD, American, and so forth—would fall somewhere down the list.”
He pleads with us to NOT replace these 3 paramount and unchanging identifiers with any others:
First and foremost, you and I are a child of God.
Second, as a member of the church, you and I are a child of the covenant.
And third, you and I are a disciple of Jesus Christ.
“Make no mistake about it: Your potential is divine. With your diligent seeking, God will give you glimpses of who you may become.
How would knowing this truth influence your decisions every day? How would it change how you view others?
His second fundamental truth that will help you with your future is to: KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT GOD THE FATHER AND HIS SON, JESUS CHRIST HAVE OFFERED YOU:
“In short, they have offered you everything.”
QUOTES:
God knows all and sees all. In all of eternity, no one will ever know you or care about you more than He does. No one will ever be closer to you than He is. You can pour out your heart to Him and trust Him to send the Holy Ghost and angels to care for you. He demonstrated His ultimate love when He sent His Only Begotten Son to die for you—to be your Savior and your Redeemer!
Through His Atonement, the Lord Jesus Christ overcame the world. Therefore, He is “mighty to … cleanse [you] from all unrighteousness.” He will deliver you from your most excruciating circumstances in His own way and time. As you come unto Him in faith, He will guide, preserve, and protect you. He will heal your broken heart and comfort you in your distress. He will give you access to His power. And He will make the impossible in your life become possible.
I testify that this is true. I have learned it for myself. God has done all these things for me personally.
Now, may I invite you to consider a few questions? Do you want to feel peace about concerns that presently plague you? Do you want to know Jesus Christ better? Do you want to learn how His divine power can heal your wounds and weaknesses? Do you want to experience the sweet, soothing power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ working in your life?
Seeking to answer these questions will require effort—much effort.
Isn’t it pathetic that everything that is good requires much effort? I’m just kidding. Someone said that if we truly realized what going through challenges and doing hard things does for us, we would bottle it and sell it for a lot of money, and become filthy rich.
I plead with you to take charge of your testimony. Work for it. Own it. Care for it. Nurture it so that it will grow. Feed it truth.
Engage in daily, earnest, humble prayer. Nourish yourself in the words of ancient and modern prophets. Ask the Lord to teach you how to hear Him better. Spend more time in the temple and in family history work.
As you make your testimony your highest priority, watch for miracles to happen in your life.
My dear young friends, I love you. I thank you. I believe in you. As the Lord’s prophet, I bless you to know the truth about who you are and to treasure the truth about what your glorious potential really is. I bless you to take charge of your own testimony. And I bless you to have the desire and strength to keep your covenants.
As you do, I promise that you will experience spiritual growth, freedom from fear, and a confidence that you can scarcely imagine now. You will have the strength to have a positive influence far beyond your natural capacity. And I promise that your future will be more exhilarating than anything you can presently believe.
This past week, when I was feeling anxious and overwhelmed about all that I had to accomplish and seemed suffocated with thoughts of “How can I do it all?” “What have I gotten myself into?” Then I happened to read the front cover of the conference issue of the Liahona magazine and this is what it said,
QUOTE: Elder Uchtdorf pg. 124 May Liahona
"When we look at our lives and see a hundred things to do, we feel overwhelmed. When we see one thing - loving and serving God and His children, in a hundred different ways - then we can work on those things with joy." "his is how we offer our whole souls - by sacrificing anything that's holding us back and consecrating the rest to the Lord and His purposes."
I close with this scripture by King Benjamin in Mosiah 2:41, who was a very righteous King.
41 And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.
We love you. We cherish our relationships with each one of you here today. We have covenanted with God to sacrifice and consecrate our lives to gather Israel and build His kingdom. We have faith that we will continue to see miracles and only grow in our love and happiness with our individual lives and with our relationships with God and each other. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
“What Really Matters?”
Tony’s Mission Farewell talk, June 26, 2022
I am humbled by the opportunity to speak to our family, extended family, dear friends and members of our ward. Janet and I are honored that you would want to hear what we have to share with you prior to our departure for our full-time mission in Australia.
Janet has spoken about the three fundamental truths that Pres. Nelson identified that [we] need to understand to help us [navigate through life]; these truths encompass “what really matters”.
She has concentrated on the first two truths; I would like focus on the third truth: which is “to know the truth related to your conversion”. I do so from my perspective as a convert to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Pres. Nelson stated: “The truth is that you must own your own conversion. No one else can do it for you.”
What does that mean, to “own your own conversion”?
· It means that we cannot transfer or “cut and paste” the faith and testimony of someone else to our own hearts and minds.
I think it also means, or at least implies, that we are converted to “what really matters”
· What might that mean?
· To answer that, may I suggest that we consider what I would call the “object” of our conversion.
· As a convert myself, and within the context of talking about the process of conversion, I have often spoken of it both as conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as well as conversion to the Church.
¨ Over the years, when people asked if I’m a convert, I responded: Yes, I am a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I suggest that that is neither a complete or accurate answer.
Regarding the object of our conversion, Elder L. Todd Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve, shared this insight on our relationships with both Jesus Christ and His Church (in his Oct. 2015 GC address, entitled “Why the Church?”):
“In… discussion of the Church as the body of Christ, we must always bear in mind two things. One, we do not strive for conversion to the Church, but to Christ and His gospel, a conversion that is facilitated by the Church. The Book of Mormon expresses it best when it says that the people “were converted unto the Lord, and were united unto the church of Christ.” ( 3 Ne 28:23).
After we are converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we unite and join with the Church.
Elder Christofferson then speaks to the purpose of the Church: “Following the apostasy and disintegration of the Church He had organized while on the earth, the Lord reestablished the Church of Jesus Christ once again through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The ancient purpose remains: that is, to preach the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and administer the ordinances of salvation—in other words, to bring people to Christ.”
He then talks about how we serve individually and collectively: “In the Church we not only learn divine doctrine; we also experience its application. As the body of Christ, … members of the Church minister to one another in the reality of day-to-day life. All of us are imperfect; we may offend and be offended. We often test one another with our personal idiosyncrasies. In the body of Christ, we have to go beyond concepts and exalted words and have a real “hands-on” experience as we learn to “live together in love.”
May we be more patient, tolerant, and non-judgmental with one another; and resist the temptation to expect perfection in each other. May we strive to be more like Jesus Christ, and to bring others to Him.
Understanding the difference between being converted to Jesus Christ and His gospel, rather than to the Church (or its members), really matters.
When my first wife, Karen, and I investigated the Church, we gained essential testimonies of the Book of Mormon. What was key to our testimonies? What really mattered? We were both astounded and overjoyed to learn through the Book of Mormon, with greater clarity, our true identities as children of Heavenly Father; and the natures and missions of God the Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost (the first two fundamental truths that Pres. Nelson identified). We were highly encouraged to not take our friends or the missionaries’ word for anything, but to ponder and pray about the things we read in the Book of Mormon and the Bible; to “own our own conversion”.
Regarding the object of our conversion, our first bishop, Terry Moyer, gave us this counsel: Put your faith in Jesus Christ, NOT in members of the Church (because they/we are imperfect); and, don’t take offense at what members might say or do, or allow hurt feelings to affect your activity in the Church.
It did not take us long to see the wisdom of his counsel
We can all be offended by the actions of others, and even by policies and/or doctrines that conflict with preconceived notions.
In fact, we had an experience prior to joining the Church in which we could have been seriously offended, which could easily have caused us to stop investigating the Church and restored gospel.
I now share a part of Karen’s conversion story, in her own words, given in a talk soon after we arrived in the mission field in Mariposa, CA in 2015 (many of you may not know Karen and I were married 47 years; she passed away shortly after we returned from our mission in 2016):
“[In late 1973] our friends asked if we wanted to attend a “Know Your Religion Lecture” [with them]. We liked our friends so much, we [didn’t] dream of turning them down. I guess they had really developed a relationship of trust and friendship. Only old members of the church know what a Know Your Religion lecture is: speakers traveled around, usually BYU professors and [religion] teachers talking on different gospel topics. The topic for the one we attended was “The Significance of Gethsemane”, given by an older gentleman by the name of Lynn McKinley. He was greeting people at the door of the chapel when we walked in. I was [encouraged] to wear a skirt, so I did; but you have to understand the year this happened. It was in the 70’s, the mini-skirt years. He shook my hand and I noted, that he noted, my short skirt. We went into the chapel and sat down in the middle of the second row, right in front of the podium.
“I don’t remember much of what he said. I probably didn’t understand much of what was said, but I was paying attention. [At some point] he began reading what we now laughingly call “the woe unto’s” in 2 Nephi 9 of the Book of Mormon.
“Many verses, just to name a few: Wo unto the deaf that will not hear; for they shall perish. Woe unto the blind that will not see; for they perish also.
(“It seemed like it went on forever).
“Woe unto the liar, woe unto the murderer, and then… woe unto the mini-skirted ones… [he paused, and] he grabbed that podium, and stared right down at me and said something unpleasant, “for they shall be damned”.
“I was immediately aware [that our friends and Tony] had slid down in their seats. Just a reflex move. But for me a powerful feeling washed over me that he spoke the truth. That was my first experience with feeling the spirit and having it [teach me the principle of modesty].
“On our drive back [home] that night Elder Kahmann and I talked and committed to earnestly learn more about the church.
“I call that experience the miracle of my conversion. Although feeling the spirit was life changing, that was not the [biggest] miracle. The [bigger] miracle was, I did not take offense. I wasn’t even embarrassed. What a blessing, for had that not happened, I would not be here today.”
If Karen were here today, I know she would share her fervent and unwavering testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If asked, she might even share (without naming names) some instance from her 42 years as a member of the Church, in which she had her feelings hurt by other members; but she would also say, the Gospel is true, Jesus Christ is my Savior, so what else matters?
I now share another story about what really matters:
This is a story told by Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley, recounted in the July 1993 Ensign magazine:
“Mine has been the opportunity to meet many wonderful men and women in various parts of the world. A few of them have left an indelible impression upon me. I share with you a story I spoke of some years ago. I met a naval officer from a distant nation, a brilliant young man who had been brought to the United States for advanced training. Some of his associates in the United States Navy, whose behavior had attracted him, shared with him at his request their religious beliefs. He was not a Christian, but he was interested. They told him of the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, who gave his life for all mankind. They told him of the appearance of God, the Eternal Father, and the resurrected Lord to the boy Joseph Smith. They spoke of modern prophets. They taught him the gospel of the Master. The Spirit touched his heart, and he was baptized.
“He was introduced to me just before he was to return to his native land. We spoke of these things, and then I said: “Your people are not Christians. What will happen when you return home a Christian, and, more particularly, a Mormon Christian?”
“His face clouded, and he replied, “My family will be disappointed. They may cast me out and regard me as dead. As for my future and my career, all opportunity may be foreclosed against me.”
“I asked, “Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?” “His dark eyes, moistened by tears, shone from his handsome brown face as he answered, “It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Ashamed at having asked the question, I responded, “Yes, it’s true.”
“To which he replied, “Then what else matters?”
“These are questions I should like to leave with you: “It’s true, isn’t it? Then what else really matters?”
So, what really matters, when we need to make the most important and/or difficult decisions in life?
First and foremost, my knowledge and testimony of who I am, and my relationship to God and His Son, Jesus Christ, is what really matters.
Second, I know this for myself, as the Holy Ghost has born witness to me, time and time again, of these and other eternal truths. I can never deny them.
Every blessing I have in my life, everything I hold dear, I owe to my conversion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I bear testimony: that the Book of Mormon is true; that it was translated by inspiration through the Prophet Joseph Smith; Jesus Christ is my Savior and Redeemer; and Pres. Russell M Nelson is the Lord’s prophet today.
This I declare this to you; and this is what I look forward to sharing at every opportunity with the people of Australia.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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